When I decided to study in Hong Kong for the fall semester, I immediately started contacting HK-based food-tech startups, particularly those in alternative protein.

I was especially excited about Avant Meats. To my luck, Carrie Chan, Avant’s CEO and Co-founder replied, and we arranged for me to join Avant as a consultant for a few months.

Avant Meats is the first cultivated meat company in Greater China and second in Asia. Avant’s first product is fish maw, a common dish in Chinese cuisine, and Avant is developing a fish filet as well.

In this article, I give an overview of problems in the seafood industry, Chinese and broader Asian consumption trends, and Avant’s strategy/progress thus far. For similar content, check out my post about my summer working for GoodDot, India’s largest plant-based meat company.

Since I decided to work with Avant, I have only become more convinced that solutions like cultivated seafood are necessary. Avant has a fascinating strategy that could serve as a model for other cultivated meat startups and emphasizes the need for regionally-tailored solutions.

Before I get into how interesting Avant is, I want to explain why we need cultivated seafood in the first place.

Problems in the seafood industry

The seafood industry has too many problems to list in an article people will actually read, so I am going to give brief explanations of the major issues. If these interest you, there are likely hours of reading on each one.

Environmental pollution:

• Plastic pollution: Trying to reduce your plastic footprint? Well, Greenpeace’s most recent report found that fishing gear is the largest source of ocean plastic pollution. Since much of this gear is nets, intended for catching fish, this form of pollution executes its function and is especially deadly for marine life. Additionally, 86 percent of “megaplastic” in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (that massive and frequently referenced gyre of plastic in the Pacific Ocean) is composed of discarded fishing nets. So yes, ditch the straws, but I’d strongly encourage ditching the fish too.

Photo courtesy of National Geographic

• Carbon footprint: We often hear about carbon footprint of animal ag, but rarely does anyone talk about the carbon footprint of seafood. I had not considered this until Carrie explained it to me. Fishing vessels have to travel long distances to reach fish which consumes huge amounts of fuel. These distances are increasing with decreased catches as fisheries are depleted.

Overfishing:

• Depletion of fisheries: The FAO found that over 90 percent of global fisheries are overfished or are being fished at their maximum sustainable levels.
• Collapse of ecosystems: When fish are wild-caught, their roles in the ocean’s ecosystems are disrupted. Our high volume of fish consumption is devastating marine biodiversity. The removal of fish leaves predators without a steady food supply and removes population controls for the species the depleted fish normally consumes. This has a ripple (lol, but not funny!) effect on the ocean’s food web.
• Bycatch: This is closely related to my previous point. The majority of fish are caught with large nets or through bottom trawling where nets are dragged along the seafloor. These nets have no way of discriminating between the fish being caught to sell and any other species in their vicinity. The result is referred to as “bycatch”, and it is disastrous for ocean life. Not only does bycatch harm fish, but it can trap our favorite aquatic protagonists like dolphins, whales, and sea turtles. Bottom trawling can also destroy coral reefs.

Lack of transparency: In many contexts, it is very challenging, if not impossible, to know the true origin of your seafood. The seafood supply chain is complex and highly globalized. This lack of transparency has several implications:

• Mislabeling: A study in the U.S. found that 21 percent of fish are mislabeled. Often, this mislabeling may be farmed salmon dyed and labeled as wild-caught salmon. But, this mislabeling could also mean that the fish you are eating is actually an endangered species or it could make you sick.
• Forced labor: Without transparency, industries cannot be held accountable for their actions. The fishing industry is notorious for human trafficking. Reading this article on slavery in the fishing industry is a necessity, some of the horrors include young men being kidnapped, killed, and grueling 22-hour workdays. I am going to assume you don’t support slavery, but you and your communities may be funding it. Some of the fish caught on boats using forced labor are sold in pet food or used as feed in shrimp farms which we then consume…a very opaque supply chain to untangle when you are trying to consume “ethically”.
• Environmental toxins: So I don’t want to be really alarmist when talking about environmental toxins in fish, but personally the thought of it makes me try to avoid fish altogether. Studies have discovered that microplastics are present in fish. Microplastics are essentially sponges for toxins like heavy metals and organic pollutants and can release these once they’re in your body. As the massive amount of plastic in the ocean continues to break down, the microplastics will only become more pervasive in our oceans. In an episode of Business for Good (great podcast btw), Sandhya Sriram, CEO of Shiok Meats, the first cultivated meat company in Asia, talks about her experience visiting a shrimp farm. Sandhya says she visited a Vietnamese shrimp farm on vacation out of curiosity only to be horrified when she witnessed shrimp grown in sewage and then cleaned in bleach. This process is an industry-standard. When the general public can’t access information about the source of their seafood, they can’t control whether they ingest toxins.

Farmed fish woes: Building on Sandyha’s story, it’s clear that fish farms are definitely not a cop-out. Fish farming is growing exponentially without enough consideration of its side effects. So, why does eating farmed fish still inflict significant harm?

Image courtesy of Our World in Data

• Antibiotics: Like factory farms on land, fish farms often use antibiotics. Overuse of antibiotics can lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria which hurts fish populations and threatens our own ability to use antibiotics effectively.
• Waste: As someone who is obsessed with waste from industrial animal agriculture, I felt dumb for not considering the large volumes of waste industrially farmed fish produce. FYI fish poop too! A lot, apparently. Thousands of tonnes of waste from fish farms are released into surrounding waters. This pollution impacts drinking water, marine ecosystems, and causes toxic algal blooms.

Because I haven’t been morbid enough — here’s a video of a pipe from a fish processing plant that’s been spewing virus-infected fish blood into the ocean for the past two years (:

• Sea Lice: Sea lice, a parasite found in fish farms, feed on the flesh of salmon. These infestations are negatively impacting global fish production, and the lice cause fish farmers to use more antibiotics and chemicals on their farms. Sea lice can also spread to wild salmon populations.

Photo of salmon with sea lice, courtesy of BBC

• Inefficient: 25 percent of our global seafood supply is used to feed farmed fish. What! Not to mention that a study found that 90 percent of that fish could be used to feed humans.
• Health: Farmed fish tend to eat a less nutritious diet than wild-caught fish, and they are limited in their ability to swim long distances. This means that farmed fish tend to be higher in saturated fat and calories.
• Environmental toxins: Yes, I’m repeating myself. It’s worth noting that persistent organic pollutants, which are connected with diseases like type 2 diabetes and obesity, are five to ten times higher in farmed fish than wild-caught.

There has been much-needed talk about how we eat too much meat and why that’s bad for us and the planet. This conversation often overlooks seafood consumption. Yet, the FAO predicts that we will produce 177.8 million tonnes of fish in 2019 or 20.5 kg per capita. I am unsure whether this number includes species like crustaceans or shellfish and if it includes bycatch, none of which are directly referenced.

As our supply of seafood is threatened, demand continues to grow. The FAO’s The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 reports that increases in annual fish consumption outpaces both population growth and all meat consumption. Fish and seafood consumption has quadrupled in the past 50 years. The report also predicts that by 2030, the world will eat 20 percent more fish.

Image courtesy of Our World in Data

All negative impacts of aquaculture aside, we simply cannot maintain our current, let alone future, seafood consumption levels. Our wild fisheries are already collapsing, and the impacts of climate change will only further destabilize our seafood supply. And no, fish farming is not safe from these impacts. In fact, a report found that farmed fish outputs in south-east Asia, which produces a large portion of the world’s fish, will decline by 30 percent as a result of “rising sea temperatures and acidification of oceans.”

These problems sum up the major reasons startups like Avant exist. Yet, Avant is not starting with salmon nor tuna; they are targeting the fish maw industry. So, maybe (or maybe not) you’re wondering:

“What’s fish maw?”

Great question! I asked the same thing.

Fish maw is the swim bladder of a fish. Swim bladders are organs whose function is to regulate buoyancy.

Fish maw is really popular in Hong Kong, and it is most commonly served in soup, but you can find it other dishes, like cooked with chicken in many dim sum restaurants. It has a tofu-ish bite, and people purchase it dried then rehydrate it. Fish maw is known for being high in collagen, which is said to improve hair, skin, and joint strength. There are stores selling dried seafood, including fish maw, all over Hong Kong, and I would see them in basically every area I visited.

I took this pic while walking in Sheung Wang, where shops like this are everywhere.

I don’t really want to get deep into it in this article, but the economics and international trade of fish maw are fascinating. In the past, Chinese people have purchased fish maw as ‘speculative investments’ or even used it as currency. So, often the cost of fish maw isn’t totally reflective of the demand for actually consuming it. Apparently, larger bladders can sell for as much as US$130,000. I really recommend reading more here.

Fish maw epitomizes the ridiculous inefficiency of how we produce protein. The totoaba, a fish commonly caught for its swim bladder, can grow up to 7 feet (2.1 meters) long. Harvesting a 7-foot fish for the…swim bladder?

Repositioning the tragedy of current fish maw production toward the obvious solution requires Winston Churchill’s frequently referenced, foresighted quote:

“We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.”

If you are an outsider to Chinese culture (like me), it seems surprising that such a specific product could have a large impact. Just Hong Kongers spend about $US250 million on fish maw annually. Furthermore, the Chinese eat a lot of fish. The FAO reported that, per capita, Chinese people eat 41 kg (90 lb) of fish annually. This figure is double the global average, which is especially alarming when one considers that China is a nation of 1.4 billion people. This means that species can experience serious existential threat even without being a staple dish.

Several species of fish produced for fish maw reaching as far as Mexico and East Africa are now threatened with extinction. Additionally, the fish maw fishing practices are thought to be the culprit for the 90 percent population decline of the vaquita, the world’s smallest porpoise, often called “the panda of the sea.” We should not prioritize species protection based on said species’ cuteness, but the vaquita is very cute.

Where Avant comes in:

Alright, now that I just dumped all this unsavory content on you, let’s get back to the optimistic stuff: the essential work Avant is doing.

Avant has a really clever strategy beyond its regionally tailored product. In addition to the clear sustainability logic of producing fish maw with cultivation technology, fish maw is much simpler to produce than other cultivated meats, like a fish filet. Fish maw is composed of only one cell type and has a homogenous texture whereas a meat like steak has a more complex texture that requires various components— fat, muscle, support cells, blood vessels. Consequently, Avant has been able to develop its prototype in a short time frame and can quicken their go-to-market plan. Additionally, fish maw is a premium product and Hong Kong is a premium market, so Avant’s journey to price parity with traditional fish maw is much more realistic than products like hamburgers or chicken nuggets. Instead of spending several years in R&D trying to perfect its fish filet first, Avant can go ahead and build business operations and start generating revenue with fish maw sales to fund the development of a filet.

Avant promotes the added benefits of producing cultivated fish beyond just avoiding the problems with traditional seafood production.

A few of the benefits:

• Cultivated seafood can eventually be made better than the equivalent wild-caught or farmed species such as by producing a product with higher levels of nutrients or lower fat.
• Cultivated products can be hyper-local and have a completely transparent supply chain as they can be produced in urban areas and sold directly to consumers.
• Cultivated production is independent of environmental conditions, so there are no “bad years” or drops in production as a result of weather or other external factors.
• Since electricity powers cultivated meat production, renewable energy can power cultivated meat production. Solar Foods, a startup I worked for this summer creating “air protein”, already uses renewable energy to power its production.

To read more about the benefits of cultivated meat, check out 90 Reasons to Consider Cellular Agriculture from Kris Gasteratos, the Founder of the Cellular Agriculture Society (CAS). It is super comprehensive and useful, especially if you are not very familiar with this topic.

Avant hosted its first demo at a press conference during Hong Kong’s Food’s Future Summit in October 2019 where a panel sampled cultivated fish maw mixed into a fried potato ball. I was able to [wo]man the Avant table at this conference as well as in Beijing for the Future Food Forum China x VeggieWorld where we brought along the same product (but not for sampling). Avant plans to go-to-market by 2022.

The fish maw sampled in Hong Kong and showcased in Beijing. Photo courtesy of Avant.

As the alternative protein industry grows, we need a plethora of solutions designed for varying cultures, consumption trends, and price points. More startups should tailor their products to specific markets like Avant.

Whether or not you eat seafood, learning all of this can be very distressing. Luckily for us, we have viable solutions on the horizon. The road to cultivated seafood becoming accessible to the mainstream consumer is long, and we face several challenges such as cost, scalability, regulations, and consumer awareness and acceptance. Armed with this knowledge, I urge you to reconsider your current seafood consumption habits, educate those around you, spread the word about cultivated meat, and buy these products when they are commercially available. Even just reducing your fish consumption slightly or trying out the available plant-based alternatives can help shift the market.

P.S. Want to follow Avant’s journey? Sign up for (infrequent) email updates here.

P.S.S. KindEarth.Tech (KET) is organizing a conference in Singapore this April focused on sustainable, slaughter-free seafood.